1. Field Of The Invention
The present invention relates to means for adapting a continuous-form printer for printing sequential sets of cards initially carried by a continuous-form paper carrier sheet.
2. Brief Description Of The Prior Art
Many electronic printers are designed to use so-called continuous-form paper, which is a continuous strip of paper provided along each edge with sprocket perforations. The paper is initially stacked by being folded in alternate directions along perforated tear lines and similar perforated lines are provided along both edges to allow the sprocket hole margins of the paper to be torn away. In the type of printer to which the present invention is directed, the continuous-form paper is fed upwardly past the printing means by so-called tractor units that engage the sprocket holes along both edges of the paper above the printing means. Various types of printing means can be employed in such a printer, e.g. dot matrix, hammerbar, daisy wheel, thermal, ink jet, etc.
In many cases, there is a need to print information on individual cards and to arrange the cards in sequential order. For example, printed tabulating cards, that are both visually readable and machine readable, are now replacing punch cards in many applications where punch cards were formerly widely employed. The concept of providing cards or labels removably attached to a carrier strip by which they can be fed through a printer is known in the art, but simply using this concept in conjunction with a conventional continuous-form electronic printer requires that the printed cards be manually separated from the carrier sheet and stacked, which is laborious and inefficient. It is also known to remove cards or labels from a carrier sheet by drawing the latter around a bar of smaller radius than can be accommodated by the relatively stiff cards or labels but this concept has previously been used in a separate apparatus such as a label applying machine, rather than being incorporated into a printer.